
iiss h 



iiook Jil^ki^ 



PRi;si;xTi;n by 



THE BOROUGH TOWN 



OF 



WESTCHESTER. 



AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BY 

FORDHAM MORRIS, 

on the 28th day of October, 1896, 

BEFORE THE 

Westchester County Historical Society, 

IN THE 

COURT HOUSE, 
at White Plains, N. Y. 






Gift 
The Society 

18 I 05 



Vc 



The Borough Town of 
Westchester. 



a^.O> 



By a law passed in 1895, this ancient township 
has become a part of New York city. 

Curious to relate, it eiiters the city with practi- 
cally the same boundaries as were prescribed and 
intended in its first patent and charter, 229 years 
ago. Its natural characteristics are : tide water or 
streams on its boundaries — rolling ridges, with 
an altitude at the very highest point not exceeding 
200 feet above tide level, placed so as to afford 
pleasing prospects across its salt meadows or lower 
plateaus, valleys running into each other, afford- 
ing convenient sites for streets, railways and drain- 
age operations, while its shores recede inland on 
gentle grades with estuaries from deep navigable 
waters, presenting easy problems for the engineer 
and dockbuilder to change it from rural to city 
uses. 

Its boundaries are East River to the south, the 
Bronx River to the west, Eastchester Town to the 
north, and Hutchinson's River and Pelham Bay to 
the east. It brings nearly ten thousand acres 
into the city territory, and adds about ten, thousand 
people to its population. This is only an estimate, 



2 THE BOnorGTI TOWN OF WESTCHESTER. 

as we liave 110 recent census to guide ns, and its 
recent growth has been i^henomenal. 

The Sinoway was the Indian tribe inhabiting 
the region before ics settlement by whites. This 
tribe was probably friendl}^ for no record of its 
participation in war appears, though some of its in- 
land neighbors were hostile. The Indian villages 
within the township were t\Yo : one in the Bear 
Swamp, near where the Morris Park race track is 
situated, the oLher on Castle Hill Neck on the west- 
ern side of the outlet of Westchester Creek. 
Adri?en Blok, on his voyage of discovery of East 
River and Long Island Sound was probably the 
first white man who saw their wigwams perched on 
tile crown of i'nstle Hill, where the Screven place 
now is. Tlie Dutch as early as 1639-40, to extin- 
guish the Indian title, had purchased from them, 
receiving two deeds of all the lands we now know 
to be within the bounds of Westchester County. 
From those two deeds and the original discovery of 
the water fronts on both the Hudson and Sound 
sides of Westchester Count j^ the primal jurisdic- 
tion based on discovery as well as purchase gave the 
Dutch undoubted govei-n mental and proprietary 
authority. 

Shortly after the purcliase, one John Throckmor- 
ton settled on what we now call Throgg's Neck and 
.soon afterwards one Cornell settled on what we 
{;all Clason's Point. Both of these settlements were 
made by and with the consent of the Dutch au- 
thorities. This and the adjoining teri-itory had 
been christened by the Dutch A^reedelandt or the 
"free land," for on it the W^est India Company 
permitted and enc<>ur:iged settlements by the niMuy 
refugees from New Miiuhmd. drivr-n nwnx' 1)\" the 



THE BOROUGH TOWN OF WESTCHESTER. 3 

religious persecutions of that country. The en- 
joyment of these privileges was short lived, for the 
homes of the settlers were destroyed by the Indian 
raid of the Weekquasesgeeks in 1652. They drove 
the Cornell's from Clason's Point, Throckmorton 
from Throgg's Neck, and foully murdered Ann 
Hutchinson, the most distinguished of all the New 
England refugees, at her home on the borders of the 
township. This fearful calamity, the lack of in- 
terest manifested towards the colony by the Hol- 
land government, the possibly factitious influences 
of the English speaking subjects of tVie company, 
who had settled at Oostdorp or tlie East Village, as 
Westchester was then called, all tended to render 
New Netherland an easy conquest for the English 
in 1664, as it is a matter of history that many 
other Englisli besides Throckuiorton and Cornell 
settled at Oostdorp, without permission from the 
Dutch. Petrus Stuyvesant to punish them had also 
imprisoned some, and only released them on the 
petition of weeping wives and oaths of alle- 
gience to the Dutch Company and accepting such 
magistrates as Stuyvesant approved. It also ap- 
pears, that even a few months before the surrender, 
one Thomas Pell from Connecticut, who had pro- 
cured an Indian grant, confirmed by Connecticut, 
dated 1654, covering all the region within our town- 
ship, and much more in Eastchester, prevailed 
upon the English settlers at Oostdorp to 
transfer their rights to him, and then on the next 
day he generously permits tliem " to enjoy the 
fullest improvements of tlieir labors." 

Hardly was the English order of things es- 
tablished when Pel] l)(^gan a suit in the Coui't 
of Assi/es (o oust the Cornell heirs from 



4 THE BOROUGH TOWN OF WESTCHESTER, 

tlieir settlement on Clason's Point, but tiie 
Court recognized the early grants and upheld 
the articles of capitulation by which every man 
was secured in the estate possessed by him at 
the time of the surrender. Nicoll, the English com- 
mander, acted with fairness and wise deliberation. 
The people who had either under the Dutch or 
Pell's auspices, settled between Rattlesnake or 
Black Dog Brook or west of Hutchinson's River 
were permitted to remain. 

This settlement was where part of Wakefield, 
now also annexed to the city, and Mount Vernon 
are situated. 

Cornell's grant on the Neck was confirmed as far 
east as Barrett's Creek. 

The people at Oostdorp were not disturbed 
and Pell was kept generally to the east of Hutchin- 
son's River. 

Having adjusted the disputed grants, in 1667, 
Nicoll issued the first patent calling the town 
Westchester, describing it within the same bound- 
aries it had at it recent dissolution. He appointed 
John Quinby, John Ferris, Nicholas Bayley, Wil- 
liam Betts and William VV alters on behalf of them- 
selves and the other freeholders and inhabitants 
patentees of all the lands in the said town not other- 
wise disposed of. The political and proprietary 
rights secured by this grant created a community 
with each freeholder possessing his share in the 
land with rights of pasture in the range for cattle, 
sheep and hogs, which by the terms of the grant 
extended into the woods indefinitely but really only 
until some line of an earlier grant was found. Each 
one was also entitled to a home lot — which soon 
became a fee estate. The home lots were about 



THE BOROUGH TOWN OF WESTCHESTER. 5 

where the present village now is. The pasture lands 
or commons extended at first in every direction, 
but were, as the inhabitants increased, gradually 
allotted in severalty by the freeholders at town 
meetings. Magistrates, subject to the approval of 
the Governor, were elected by the people and, thus 
he little Republic began. 

They were farmers or men with trades 
necessary in a rural neighborhood. Nicoll had 
changed the name of th province from New 
Netherland to New York and naming nearly 
all the other settlements after the various titles 
which King James, then Duke of York, pos- 
sessed, such as York, Albany, etc., to carry out the 
analogy called Long Island and Westchester York- 
shire. Our town lay in the North Riding of York- 
shire. 

During the short interregnum of the Dutch recap- 
ture in 1673, the inhabitants again swore allegiance 
to the Dutch. They delivered up the fiag and the 
constables' staves and joined in a respectful sub- 
mission. They were granted the rights and privi- 
leges of Hollanders and pardoned for their past er- 
rors in "coquetting with Pell and the other English." 

The terms of the treaty of Breeda, providing that 
the Dutch should liave Venezula or Surinam in- 
stead of New Netherland, leaves little of interest to 
mention about the short Dutch reoccupancy. In 
1673, we may say the English colonial period of 
Westchester began. 

Her people at first attended the courts and as- 
semblies held in New York and on Long Island. 
Governor Dongan confirmed in 1686 the Nicoll's 
patent, but it continued to be the North Riding of 
Yorkshire until 1691, when the County of West- 
chester was erected, and being then the most con- , 



6 THE BOROUGH TOWN OF WESTCHESTER. 

siderable settlement it is a fair deduction that the 
town named in 1667, g'dva the name to the County 
from which it has just been severed. 

In 1696 Grovernor Fletcher erected Westchester 
into a Borough town, giving it separate representa- 
tion in the General Assembly. 

Col. Caleb Heathcote, one of the most distin- 
guished of all the men in colonial times, and then 
of the Governor's Council, seems to have been one 
of the largest land owners and was appointed the 
first Mayor. He was also its first Assemblyman. 
He, too, at one time, was Mayor of New York, for 
honors were easy in those days, and plurality of of- 
fices seemed to be the customary thing. Besides 
he was a Judge and Colonel of the Militia, and as 
in the early days there was no church, he had his 
men drilled on a Sunday and ordered the Captain 
to read the Scriptures to them as part of the mili- 
tary exercises. The Borough continued to have its 
representation in the Provincial Assembly, sep- 
arate from the other parts of the County down to 
the time when Tryon, the last Colonial Governor of 
New York, (in 1776), taking refuge on a British ship 
in New York Harbor, prorogued the last session of 
the Colonial Legislature. The Morrises, Liberals, 
or the DeLanceys, Tories, seem to have 
been, after Heathcote, tlie representatives for 
the Borough, as the Liberal or Fory parties prevail- 
ed, for the Morrises were freemen, though not resi- 
dents of the Borough, and the DeLanceys at the 
West Farms Mills had sticeeeded in rhe female line 
to Heathcote, as he left no male heirs to his hold- 
ings. 

Isaac Wilkins, the owner of Castle Hill, who 
had intermarried with the Morrises of Morrisania, 
was also the representative just before the Revolu- 



THE BOROUGH TOWN OP WESTCHESTER. 7 

tion . His family tie with that Revolutionary 
stock did not prevent his siding with the King, and 
later he became a loyal refugee from the country 
and lived for a time in England. Returning after 
the Revolution, he retained the homestead on Cas- 
tle Hill, took holy orders and became rector of St. 
Peter's after the establishment of the new order of 
things. History takes no sides but records facts, 
and a distant connection cannot now refrain, after 
the heated family and political dissensions are end- 
ed, to give to good Parson Wilkins' memory 
the tribute it merits. Loyal to his King, he sided with 
the Phillipses of Yonkers and other Tories, and did 
all he could by pen, speech and in open opposition 
to Lewis Morris, his brother-in-law, who as a repre- 
sentative of New York, signed the Declaration of In- 
dependence. But after the War he came back to his 
old home, was foremost in helping his former neigh- 
bors to reorganize their affairs, taught them not 
only higher agriculture, learned by him in England, 
but for years as luy reader, and ordained priest, from 
the pulpit of Saint Peter's, read the beautiful ser- 
vice of the Protestant Episcopal Church, adminis- 
tered its sacraments and told the old, old story of 
duty to Cxod and duty to neghbors. 

To return to a further consideration of the an- 
cient Borough: With Heathcote as Mayor, we find 
William Barnes, John Stuart, William Willett, 
Thomas Baxter, Josiah Stuart and John Bailey 
the first Aldermen, and Ismel Honeywell, Robert 
Huestis, Samuel Ferris, Daniel Turner and Miles 
Oakley, the Assistant Aldermen. It had its sepa- 
rate seal. Mayor's Court, Constable, Keeper of the 
Mace, and other usual municipal parapharnalia. 
Its well kept records show the mode of life 
adopted by those rural burghers. 

Three mills were in the township, one at the 



8 THE BOROUGH TOWN OF WESTCHESTER. 

West Farms, on the Bronx, another near the mouth 
of Black Do^ Brook and a tide mill and causeway 
at the crossing of Westchester Creek, connecting 
Throgg's Neck, which is almost an island, with the 
mainland. A ferry running to Flushing was es- 
tablished at the end of the Throgg's Neck road, not 
far from where Thomas Ilavemeyer's Dock now is. 
Pelham Bridge was not built until long after the 
Revolution, and the driving route to New York 
was to Kingsbridge by way of the ford or bridge 
at West Farms near the present dam by the ice 
house in Bronx Park, or after crossing the Bronx 
by a lane on the west side of the Bronx leading to 
Morrisania, where Harlem Iliver was crossed by a 
scow ferry which landed passengers near the foot 
of 125th Street. This Borough existence was re- 
cognized as late as the full establishment of the 
state government in 1785. 

Some have likened this ancient town to those of 
New England and Long Island, whilst others, zeal- 
ous members of the Episcopal Church, have tried to 
make themselves and others believe that the town 
was a reproduction of an English parish of the 18th 
century such as we read of in the Spectator or the 
tales of Fielding and Smollett. They fancy the 
Squire in his high backed pew, the parson in his 
wig, gown and surplice, telling the congregation its 
duty to their Maker and also as to tithes, the Royal 
Family, the ilouse of Hanover, and the Protestant 
Succession. Neither is a correct similitude. The 
officials, though elected, were subject to the Gover- 
nor's apjproval, and no rigid rule as to cliurch mem- 
bership prevailed as in the New England towns. 
The town, not the church wardens and vestry at- 
tended to most of the temporalities such as high- 
ways and bridges, and tliough tlie vestry levied 



THE BOROUGH TOWN OP WESTCHESTER. 9 

the cliurch rates, the town built and paid for the 
church, and in very late colonial times released its 
interest in the church property to 
the rector, church wardens and vestry. 

Though the Church was sujjported partially by a 
tax, the school-master was supported by the Bor- 
ough, but until post revolutionary times the poor 
were a Parish charge. Though an act for 
settling orthodox ministers in the province was 
passed shortly after the establishment of the En- 
glish Colonial system, (for of course the English was 
the orthodox church in colonial times) those sons 
of Cromwellian soldiers, Quaker refugees and Inde- 
pendents did not at first take kindly to a State 
Church, and good Parson Bartow, the first Church 
of England minister in the town, did not even wear 
or own a surplice. Many of the peoj^le were 
gradually won over to mother church, so far as a 
student can judge from reading the good minister's 
letters to the Society in England, more by his own 
loving kindness and self respect rather than any 
inherent love those hard-working farmers had for 
the Church of England. Besides the Quakers had 
established their meeting-house in the town almost 
as early as the Church of England edifice was erect- 
ed and its graveyard is still to be found adjoining 
the Episcopal churchyard, though the Meeting 
House and those who were moved by 
the Spirit within it, have long since departed. 

Across the Bronx a Dutch congregation h^d 
also been established at Fordbam. The first 
Episcopal Church was not an imposing edifice 
though it had an apology for a steeple in the shape 
of a cupola which the clergyman in his 
letter's to England said looked like a pigeon 
house, and though the clergyman was paid 
a small stipend, it was added to by re- 



10 THE BOROUGH TOWN OF WESTCHESTER. 

mittances from the Society for the PropogatioQ of 
the Gospel in Foreign parts. The parson more than 
earned his salary, for not only did he have the church 
in Westchester, but Yonkers and Eastch^ster also 
came under his ministration. The church at West- 
chester has the distinction of having had as its rector 
at the outbreak of the Revolution, the Rev. Samuel 
Seabury, afterwards consecrated bishop in Scot- 
land, from whom our other bishops in the 
Protestant Episcopal Church of the United 
States trace apostolic succession, but the 
glamour of its ever having been a semi-aristocratic 
living in the English sense of the term is founded 
on no state of facts which are worthy of credence. 
Some documents following the English form were 
signed by the Bishop of London and entrusted to 
Colonial Governors to enable them to induct the 
reverend gentlemen into the parish, wherein early 
times they were grudgingly paid and sometimes not 
paid at all, and it is a fair statement to make that 
from the time of Bartow to Seabury in colonial 
times and from Wilkins to the present Dr. Clen- 
denin, tithes were unknown. Advowsons^ in the 
English sense of the word, did not exist, and the 
good example and holy lives of the clergyman them- 
selves were the centre and controlling powers, under 
God, of old St. Peter's influence, whether it was the 
good Bartow acting as a missionary to the souls of 
a . flock without a shepherd, or the present reverend 
incumbont, who, by his manly actions and fair out- 
spoken war on vice and disorder, succet^ded at the 
head of its better citizens in purging the town from 
political misrule, finally succeeding in obtaining 
the legislation vvhich has annexed the Township to 
the City of New York. 

From a very early period a Court House and 
jail for the County had been located at West- 
chester. It was burned in 1790. Courts were 



THE BOROUGH TOWN OP WESTCHESTER. 11 

frequently held there before that time. 

The representatioQ of the Borough lu the Board 
of Supervisors was continuous down to 1778, but 
from that year to 1784, no record of a supervisor 
as such appears, as the town was within the debate- 
able ground during the Revolution. To the credit 
of the Borough, however, it appears that many of its 
inhabitants, refugees from their homes, considered 
themselves freeholders and inhabitants of the Bor- 
ough and appeared at the temporary Court House 
on King street, near the Connecticut border and ap- 
pointed Thomas Hunt, Abraham Leggett, Israel 
Honeywell, John Oakley, Gfilbert Oakley, Daniel 
White and John Smith to serve the town on the 
County Committee, which gave so much aid during 
the Revolution. 

The annals of the Borough in Revolutionary times 
are worthy our consideration. As you remember 
after the battle of Long Island, in the summer of 
1776, Washington's army still occupied the north- 
ern portion of Manhattan Island. A strong line of 
American pickets was posted along the West- 
chester County shore of Harlem River stretching 
from Kingsbridge to Hell Gate. The plan of Howe, 
the British General, was to destroy the American 
army on Manhattan Island and then pushing north 
and east to obtain a footing in Westchester County 
so as to cut oif the line of communication between 
New England and New Jersey. With the deep 
harlbor of New York and its city as his base of sup- 
plies from without ; the roads along and leading to 
the Hudson in his possession ; with all Westchester 
and Long Island ior foraije,ioood2indi other supplies, 
his wedge of veterans could separate the thirteen 
colonies and make an easy connection for another 
army to advance from Canada. But Washington's 



12 THE BOROUGH TOWN OP WESTCHESTER. 

prophetic eye forsaw the danger. His raio and 
ever elianging army, he knew, could not for long 
cope with veterans — short of supplies, arms and 
ammunition, pay doubtful, jealousy between colon- 
ies, complicated congressional aid, and a population 
in the city of New York divided as to the merits 
of the controversy, rendered his tenure of Port 
Washington on Manhattan Island subject to the 
worst of all enemys, treachery in Ills midst. Polit- 
ical as well as military considerations required that 
he should guard well an interior line of communi- 
cation between the colonies. The Hudson and fast- 
nesses of the Westchester Hills were chosen as the 
citadel from whicli he nevnr swerved during the 
long war. Events in our Borough rendered this 
masterly strategy possible. 

As early as August, 1776, a part of Howe's fleet 
made a reconuoisance up East River and Long Is- 
land Sound as far as City Island. The landing 
party on Pelham Neck, after committing some dep- 
redations, weie driven away by Graham's regiment 
of Westchester militia. A flank movement on 
Washington's left and rear and the hemming in of 
the army on Manhattan Island were therefore to be 
guarded against, and on September 4th, Washing- 
ton and General Heath, who commanded the Ameri- 
cans in Westchester, consulted together at Kings- 
bridge. Heath formed a chain of videttes along the 
East River extending all along shore from Hell Gate 
to Throgg's Neck and broke up the roads leading 
from ilorrisania and Delancey's Mills to Kings- 
bridge, so as to render them impassable for the 
British wagons and artillery : trees were felled 
and deep pits dug in the roads. But the enemy's 
intentions were not plain. Howe had landed 
a number of troops at Randall's Island : the con- 
tingencies against attacks on Fort Washington, 



THE BOROUGH TOWN OF WESTCHESTER. 13 

by way of Harlem, Hunt's Point or Tlirogg's 
Neck were all to be guarded against. 

Several manoeuvers were made by both the 
British and Americans during September in the 
regions adjacent to but not pertinent to our sub- 
ject, but on October 3rd, General Heath, with 
Colonel Hand of the Rifles, made a reconnoissance 
as far as Throgg's Neck. The causeway at the old 
village connecting the main with Throgg's Neck 
over Westchester Creek, the Mill Dam of colonial 
times, already referred to, seemed to be a strong 
stragetic point. The bridges of planks over the 
overflow and sluiceway of the tidal mill if removed 
would form two gaps for an enemy to cross. A 
pile of cord wood arranged parallel with the creek 
and on the village side seemed as if it was placed 
there by providence to form a breastwork. 
Twenty-five of Hand's picked riflemen were placed 
behind the woodpile. Should the enemy advance 
from Throgg's Neck the planking over the water and 
sluiceway was ordered to be taken up and in case 
they could not prevent the enemy's advance they 
were told to burn the mill and retreat. Further 
to the east at the head of Westchester Creek where 
the salt meadows intervene between that estuary 
and Pelham Bay, about where the Pelham Park- 
way now crosses, another force was posted to pre- 
vent a crossing over the meadows and the capture 
of the road leading to Eastchester. On the 12th 
day of October, the British fleet and boats laden 
with troops went up the East Eiver and landed at 
Throgg's Neck where the present highway ends at 
the Havermeyer place. They got as far as 
the east end of the causeway. Hand's men 
took up the planking on the bridge and opened 



14 THE BOROUGH TOWN OF WESTCHESTER, 

fire. The unerring aim of American rifles checked 
tlie veterans of European battle fields, and, just as 
preconceived, the left flank at the head of the 
Creek was attacked. But Prescott, with his men, 
who had fought at Bnnker Hill, re-inforced the 
riflemen at the wood pile and causeway. A three- 
pounder cannon served b}'' Bryant also did good 
service there, while Graham with his Westchester 
regiment, the rest of Col. Hand's regiment and 
Jackson's six pounder, held the head of the creek 
Night fell and the British bivouacked on the Neck. 
Washington visited the line late in the day, encour- 
aged his gallant men, whom he found in good spir- 
its, and his former doubts became a conviction that 
Westchester County was the object of Howe's at- 
tack. Earthworks were thrown up by both armies 
on each side of the old bridge. Our riflemen and the 
British yagers kept up a skirmish fire for the 
next two days, and Howe finding our position too 
strong to carry with ligb*^ <iroops, advanced his 
heavy guns and commenced the erection of a heavy 
earthwork on the heights opposite the bridge and 
village near where the Presbyterian Church now 
stands. While this light line of Americans held 
the main part ot Howe's army in check, news was 
brought to Washington of the Hessians having 
landed at New Rochelle. With a considerable 
force of British in his front at Manhattan Island 
and the powerful force on his left flank and rear 
ready to advance on Kingsbridge and sure to 
gain that point finally, a movement ot the main 
army was necessary. Six days had intervened 
since Howe's lauding at Throgg's Neck. In that 
time the masterly retreat up the Albany Post Road 
to the Sawmill River and along the west bank of the 
Bronx was made towards White Plains and only a 
small garrison was left in Port Washington on 



THE BOROUGH TOWN OF WESTCHESTER. 15 

Manhattan Island. On the 18th, Howe opened fire 
with his heavy guns from the earthwork opposite 
the village and attacked the meadows, his seeming 
objective point the Eastchester and Kingsbridge 
roads. For same unaccountable reason his attack 
in that direction was not made, though there 
was skirmishing and artillery fire, merely as a feint, 
for his final object was to form a junction with the 
Hessians at New Rochelle, which he accomplished 
after a hard fight with Glover and his Marblehead 
Regiment on Pelham Neck — but that junction was 
also delayed to put his men across Pelham Bay in 
boats instead of carrying the Eastchester road and 
marching either to New Rochelle or Kingsbridge. 
The battle of White Plains and the Hessian con- 
quest of Fort Washiiigton is outside the scope of 
our paper, but to our Borough belongs the honor of 
being the site where Howe's advance was checked 
and the retreat to White Plains made possible. It 
is hoped that the patriotism of the residents 
of the old Borough will before long place a monu- 
ment near the old causeway comriiemorative of this 
seemingly slight but vastly important battle of 
Westchester Creek. 

Time will not permit us to tell the numerous tales 
of partisan warfare, foraging raids, and romantic 
episodes of love and war which our old Borough 
witnessed during those stirring times when it was 
part of the debatable ground — suffice it to say that 
never again did a large force visit it during the 
Revolution, and its ancient oaks attest the fact of 
its not having suffered as heavily from the ravages 
of war as other parts of our county immediately to 
the west. 

The war was over, a new rule began and our old 
Borough, still recognized as such in its proprietary 
rights, became part of the Great Republic. lu 1791 



16 THE BOROUGH TOWN OF WESTCHESTER. 

the town was extended to take in all the southern 
part of Westchester County south of Yonkers and 
Eastchester between the Hudson and East River. 
How West Farms and Morrisania were carried out 
the reconstrncted town, and how West Farms 
and Morrisania became the 23d and 24th wards of 
New'York city, leaving Westchester cut off by city 
parks from the rest of the County you all know. 
A few words, however, of the ancient towm within 
its Borough limits describing it in its lost rural 
condition will complete our sketch. The early 
maps of Colonial times, the official campaign map 
made by Erskine, Washington's geographer, now 
in the New York Historical Society, the official 
township and county maps on file with the state 
engineer, the mid-century map of Sydney and Neff , 
the ancient town and Borough records and deeds at 
White Plains, and tales told to us as boy and man 
by friends and neighbors, all are the materials on 
which we base the mementoes of the social side of 
the Borough in post Revolutionary times. 

Between the Revolution and our mid-century we 
find the Necks occupied by wealthy merchantis who 
placed on the breezy shores of the East River their 
summer homes, but compelled, as now, by the ex- 
acting cares of commercial life to be near the grow- 
ing metropolis. The point of Clason's Neck was in 
the occupation of Daniel Ludlow, grandfather of 
people who, to-day, move in the most re- 
spected circles of New York society ; his colonial 
mansion is still standing ; his four-in-hand with 
relays on the road to New York was the fore-run- 
ner of the Tally- Ho, which now toots its way to the 
Country Club Old Walter Rutherf urd, a New York 
beau of the early century, tells in his letters recentlj' 
published, how Abijah Hammond was building a 
palace at Westchester, Abijah i^ gone, but tlie 



THE BOROUGH TOWN OF WESTCHESTER. 17 

house still stands at the end of Throgg's Neck, oc- 
cupied in later times by the Whiteheads, Haver- 
meyer, the founder of the great sugar house and 
Supervisor of the Town, and now by his son 
Thomas : grand example of colonial architect- 
ure with thick stone walls about the grounds 
and an incomparable view of Sound and river, from 
whence no doubt Fennimore Cooper, on a visit to 
his Delancey relatives in the neighborhood, drew 
his type of the residence of Corny Lilliei)age, in 
the novel of Satanstoe ; Bayards were also on the 
Neck not far from where the Coster house now 
stands, and near by later lived General Strong of 
our late war, and Silas M. Stillwell, to whom belongs 
the honor of abolishing imprisonment for debt, 
George Lorillard, one of the three brothers had 
built the Spencer house and owned the farms on 
which the VanCortlandts, Furmans, another Super- 
visor, Edgars, later on the Waterburys, Eobert, 
Morris and Lorillard Spencer had or have their 
holdings ; Inland, the Ferrises, Leggetts, Honey- 
wells, Heustaces, names mentioned in the colonial 
patents, still tilled their ancestral acres on the Neck 
Road. Philip Livingston, who had married into 
the Bayard family, signer of our Second State Con 
stitution, had begun his tine residence and planted 
there the first Cedar of Lebanon ever brought to 
America, under whose shade, many years after- 
wards, public-SDirited Peter VanSchaick conceived 
the idea of presenting to the town the pretty 
Library building now in the village, since amply 
endowed by Collis P. Huntington. On Castle Hill 
Neck Isaac Wilkins, already mentioned, had bought 
the sheep pasture commons and Combined the 
care of his congregation at St. Peter's with agri- 
culture. He built the house of Castle Hill, after- 
wards improved and enlarged by his courtly grand- 
son, Gouverneur Morris VVilkins. The Hell Gate 



18 THE BOROUGH TOWN OP WESTCHESTER. 

pilots then i:>lied their trade at the old farm house 
at the end of Prime's Point, now occupied by the 
Swiss chalet of Jacob Lorillard, appropriately- 
called "All Breeze," and the ancestors of the Adees, 
now at Pennyfield on the Bay, then owned their 
farms near Williamsbridge, and their large hipped 
roof house at the junction of the Williamsbridge 
and West Farms Road was long a landmark to 
the wayfarer. Further on at the Bronx Mills was 
Rose Hill, owned by the Delanceys, heirs of Col. 
Heathcote, with its mansion house, stone mill, out- 
buildings and ancient pines. Some more Ludlows, 
as the century wore on, settled on Classon's Point, 
originally Cornell's Neck, now known as Black 
Rock, from the huge bowlder we see looming up 
amidst the fiat meadows stretching towards East 
River and a new bridge and highway called the 
turnpike was laid out from the villag:e to West 
Farms crossing the Bronx and struck the Coles 
road leading to the New Harlem Bridge at Lewis 
Morris', oppsite Harlem. The LeRoys, Rappelyeas 
and Edgars wishing to get from Pelham to Morris- 
ania, about 1835 built the Pelham Bridge, famous 
resort for fishermen, and laid out the road across 
Dormer's Island passing by Stinnardtown and under 
the Spy Oak to the Causeway at Westchester. 
Annieswood, the Hunter place, now in Pelham 
Park, was built in the fifties and not till af t( r our 
late civil war was Pelham avenue laid out across 
the meadows where now the Parkway runs . Before 
the mid-century, David Lydig and his son Phillip 
liad succeeded Delancey at the mills and the Loi'il- 
lards, and Bolton with his bleachery,had established 
their snuff mills on the Bronx, between West Farms 
and Williamsbridge. The Bussings, Briggs and 
Corsas held most of the land where Olinville and 
Williamsbridge villages are now. 



THE BOROUGH TOWN OP WESTCHESTER. 19 

On the Eastchester slope, the highest part of the 
town, the Givan and Palmer homesteads stood: the 
latter home of the charming wife of Captain May, 
an artillery hero of our Mexican war. Down by 
the meadows lived Thomas Timpson, a retired New 
York merchant, while on the Williamsbridge road 
Capt. Spencer, a navy officer of the war of 1812, 
lived at the corner, whilst where now Morris Park 
looms over the landscape, Denton Pearsall, retired 
banker and butcher, told of his apprentice days 
with one of the Astors, and Abram Hatfield, many 
times Supervisor, cracked his jokes and told of his 
experiences as a New York Alderman. Further 
south was the Mapes farm, and further down on 
the Westchester Turnpike, William Watson's Wil- 
mont castle stood and still stands — home of many 
a merry dance and hearty hospitality, and last, 
but not least, in fond reminiscence and still quaint 
and old, was the village site of ancient Oostdorp, 
much then as it is now, for it was finished long 
ago. Charley Sherwood, the druggist, Doctors 
Ellis or Naudain, the medical practitioners, Wil- 
liam Cooper, school commissioner and butcher ; the 
old mill at the causeway, one of the Blizzards, the 
miller ; near by the town dock, at which the good 
sloop Westchester, Captain Ferris, master, had her 
berth, bringing supplies from the city in exchange 
for the farmers' produce, for in those days the Har- 
lem Railroad was the nearest rail transportation, 
and Aleck, blowing his horn, made the rounds with 
the stage to take up and set down a few venture- 
some passengers who journ'T^yed cityward. Nigh to 
the dock, fronting the then open green, stood, and 
still stands, the sober-tinted hipped roof store of 
that most excellent of men, Sidney B. Bowne, who, 
if living to-day, could give Macy, Stern, or even 
the great store of Siegel Cooper points in the 
variety of his wares. Anything desired was sure 



20 THE BOROUGH TOWN OF WESTCHESTER. 

to be on hand, and tradition said that even pul- 
pits and goose yokes, hand-made in those days, 
formed part of his stock in trade. Good old Mr. 
Bowne, you were loved and respected by rich 
and poor ! the memory of thy kindly "thees" and 
"thous," thy pleasant smile and green baize apron 
covering thy warm heart as thou dealt out our 
Jackson balls and bolivars, is one of our fondest 
youthful memories ! 

The second Episcopal Church edifice, with its 
pepper-pot steeple and colonial bell, its high- 
backed pews, and good Doctor Jackson in its 
doable decked pulpit, was then standing— since, 
destroyed by fire. Captain Hawkins occupied the 
grounds of the former court house on one side, 
while on the other was the orthodox Quaker meet- 
ing house and graveyard, and diagonally opposite, 
as it should be, was another sober tinted meeting 
house of the Hicksite persuasion. Opposite Saint 
Peter's the Brothers Harrington maintained their 
school for boys, whose grandchildren are still be- 
ing taught by the surviving brother at the present 
school on the Throgg's Neck hill, and further on 
the turnpike were Edward Haight, the Congress- 
man, Doctor Ellis and Andrew Findlay, surveyor, 
arbitrator, colonel of militia, assenjblyman, and 
supervisor of two towns in one session at the divis- 
ion of West Farms and Westchester in 1S46 — an 
instance never likely to occur again anywhere 
else except in Westchester County. 

Its history, after the last division of the town, 
from the service of Kindlay, in 1846. to that 
of Augustus M. Field, the last Supervisor in 
1895, her gradual change from a rural 
picturesque region to one more utilitarian, 
is best told by Shell's new map of Westchester, made 
just before its annexation. The Underhills have 
given place to the Catholic cemetery on the Neck, 



THE BOROUGH TOWN OP WESTCHESTER. 21 

the Eastern Boulevard skirts the Country Club 
grounds, where erstwhile the Ferrises, Bayards 
and Coopers had their homes; the Protectory with 
its large domain, and Morris Park with its grand 
stand, loom up on the high lands, points in the 
landscape where formerly Saint Peter's spire 
was the sole landmark to the mariner of Long 
Island Sound. 

The Parkway connects Bronx and Pelham Parks, 
the Lorillard and bleach mills no longer resound 
with the hum of machinery, but 

" Gentle Bronx still mildly flows 
Its verdant banks between," 

and on its shores the tired and worn workers of the 
great city find recreation and fresh air in the 
People's domain of Bronx Park. The hamlets 
of Olinville, Williamsbridge and Wakefield are 
larger than the County seat in 1851, and problems 
of drainage, sewerage and road-making succeed to 
the former cares of an agricultural community. 
Everywhere the electric cars encumber or wdll en- 
cumber the highways, and the Intercolonial express 
on the New Haven branch scares the waterfowl 
with its whistle from the green meadows at the 
head of the creek. 

The old town which gave a name to a 
county is dead; its histoiy and traditions alone 
survive, but the forms of its worthies still 
go trooping past on the panorama of fond recol- 
lection. Long since their mortal remains have 
been taking a quiet rest in Saint Peter's or the 
Quaker graveyards as they slope towards the creek. 
The deeds of its early settlers, its martial and for- 
ensic heroes, its gallant lads who in a later war 
helped to maintain the Union their fathers made 
possible at the old causeway, are all examples 



22 THE BOROUGH TOWN OF WESTCHESTER. 

worthy of imitation, whether our feet rest od city 
or suburban soil, and old Saint Peter's rears its 
modern spire pointing the way towards the most 
beautiful of all cities, to which it is hoped we will 
all be finally annexed, and Butler the sexton tolls 
the colonial bell, "ringiag out the old and ringing 
in the new." 



Tlie Eastern State Jouriml, 
White Plains, N. Y. 




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